Backwards Planning At the beginning of the school year the teacher reviews the demands of the PST which will be used later in the year and assesses and evaluates the general problem solving skills of the students – using data from PSTs from previous years when that data is available. The teacher then predicts what the class and individual students find very difficult regarding the PST. Now the teacher has information necessary to “backwards” plan instruction to focus on what the class and individual students need to work on to be successful on the PST when it arrives in a few months. The teacher is “backwards” planning from those difficult parts of the PST to gradually build knowledge and process skill proficiency so that the students will not have difficulty on the PST.
At the beginning of the school year the teacher reviews the demands of the PST which will be used later in the year and assesses and evaluates the general problem solving skills of the students – using data from PSTs from previous years when that data is available. The teacher then predicts what the class and individual students find very difficult regarding the PST. Now the teacher has information necessary to “backwards” plan instruction to focus on what the class and individual students need to work on to be successful on the PST when it arrives in a few months. The teacher is “backwards” planning from those difficult parts of the PST to gradually build knowledge and process skill proficiency so that the students will not have difficulty on the PST.